Brian P. Copenhaver

Scholastic Philosophy and Renaissance Magic in the De vita of Marsilio Ficino

M At arsilio Ficino completed the third part of his De vita libri tres, titled De vita coelitus comparanda, inJuly of 1489; by the fall of that year he felt obliged to write an Apologia on behalf of his new book. Though it was destined to be the most popular of his original works, this analysis and defense of astrological magic and medicine caused Ficino worry from the moment of its composition. The Apology shows that he was particularly anxious about the religious orthodoxy of De vita III, among whose readers he expected to find many ignorant critics and some malignant:

Egidio da Viterbo’s Book on Hebrew Letters: Christian Kabbalah in Papal Rome*

Egidio da Viterbo (1469–1532) wrote his Book on Hebrew Letters (Libellus de litteris hebraicis) in 1517 to persuade Pope Leo X to reform the Roman alphabet. Behind this concrete, if farfetched, proposal was a millenarian theology that Egidio revealed by introducing his Christian readers to Kabbalah, whose first Christian advocate, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, had done his pioneering work only a few decades before. Inspired by Pico and by Johann Reuchlin, Egidio also absorbed the Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, applying it in the Libellus to a Kabbalist analysis of the Aeneid, which he reads as a prophecy of papal victory over the Jews at the end of time, while also seeing Pope Leo as a modern-day Etruscan. But the main source of Egidio’s apocalyptic theology is a medieval Hebrew book, the Sefer ha-Temunah, which in Italy was new to Jews at the time Egidio read it.

Ten Arguments in Search of a Philosopher: Averroes and Aquinas in Ficino's Platonic Theology

In book 15 of his Platonic Theology on the Immortality of the Soul, Marsilio Ficino names Averroes and the Averroists as his opponents, though he does not say which particular Averroists he has in mind. The key position that Ficino attributes to Averroes—that the Intellect is not the substantial form of the body—is not one that Averroes holds explicitly, though he does claim explicitly that the Intellect is not a body or a power in a body. Ficinos account of what Averroes said about the souls immortality comes not from texts written by Averroes but from arguments made against Averroes by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa contra gentiles.

From Kant to Croce: Modern Philosophy in Italy 1800-1950

PART ONE: Introduction * A Strange History (Bobbio I) * Idealism and Sensism (Rosmini I) * Philosophies Imported and Contested (Galluppi I) * Experience and Ideology (Galluppi II) * Restoration and Reaction (Rosmini II) * The Mother Idea (Rosmini III) * Primacy (Gioberti I) * The Ideal Formula (Gioberti II) * A Natural Method (Mamiani) * Revolution and Recirculation (Spaventa) * Facts and Laws (Villari) * Real and Ideal (De Sanctis) * Resurgence (Fiorentino and Florenzi Waddington) * Matter and Idea (Labriola) * No Speculative Movement (Barzellotti) * A Revelation (Croce I) * History Under Art (Croce II) * What is Distinct? (Croce III) * What is Living? (Croce IV) * What is Dead? (Croce V) * Materialism (Gentile I) * Idealism (Gentile II) * Actualism (Gentile III) * Manifestos (Croce and Gentile) * Common Sense and Good Sense (Gramsci I) * The Religion of Liberty (Croce VI) * Philosophy in Prison (Gramsci II) * Still a Strange History (Bobbio II) PART TWO: Translations * Galluppi, Elements * Rosmini, A Sketch * Gioberti, Primacy * Gioberti, The Ideal Formula * Mamiani, Renewal * Spaventa, Italian Philosophy * Villari, Positive Philosophy * De Sanctis, Realism * De Sanctis, The Ideal * Florenzi Waddington, Pantheism I * Florenzi Waddington, Pantheism II * Fiorentino, Vico and Kant * Fiorentino, Positivism * Labriola, Materialism * Croce, The Concept of Art * Croce, Logic * Croce, The Philosophy of Hegel * Gentile, Praxis * Gentile, Idealism * Gentile, The Act of Thinking * Gentile, Actual Idealism *Manifesto I *Manifesto II * Gramsci, Introduction to Philosophy * Croce, Liberty * Gramsci, Letters

Croce and Dewey

The article focuses on the polemics between Dewey and Croce. After having theoretically skechted the peculiar stance of Dewey, it clarifies the reasons which reciprocally kept distant two thinkers both interested in putting aesthetics at the core of human experience.

A Grand End for a Grand Narrative: Lodovico Lazzarelli, Giovanni Mercurio da Correggio and Renaissance Hermetica

This long review essay addresses Wouter Hanegraaff and Ruud Bouthoorns new book on Lodovico Lazzarelli. It examines the fundamental point of how completely Renaissance magical thought should be considered hermetic. Franics Yates notion of Renaissance Hermeticism still holds great sway, but in the introduction to this book, Hanegraaff challenges it substantially.